Filmmaker Kevin Sullivan also finds Anne inspiring. Sullivan, the director of the mega-popular 1980s television miniseries featuring Megan Follows, Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth and others, sees in "Anne of Green Gables" a "universal story that has withstood the test of time. It's multigenerational. Stories like that don't get told much these days."

In honor of Anne's 100th birthday, Sullivan is releasing a book called "Anne of Green Gables: The Official Movie Adaptation," which will feature nearly 100 still photographs, many never printed before, shot on the set of the original movie. The book, published by Davenport Press, $19.95, is due out in October.

Sullivan has also done a prequel, a movie called "Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning," starring Barbara Hershey, Shirley MacLaine and introducing Hannah Endicott-Douglas as a young Anne.

"The movie follows an older Anne as she rediscovers her past before she arrives at Green Gables," said Sullivan, in a telephone chat from his offices in Toronto.

The movie was screened in Cannes, to good reception, and will be shown in Canada this fall, but the U.S. premiere is not scheduled until 2009. "We're very, very excited about it. Anyone who enjoyed Megan as Anne won't be disappointed by Hannah," he said.

It's a poignant story, he added, and even though it doesn't come from the Anne books, it puts those books into context. "It explains where her carpet bag came from, how her love of literature developed, why she had an overactive imagination, where the notion of kindred spirits came from."

A lot of it is drawn from Montgomery's life. "I tried to fill in the blanks as I saw it. It's what might have happened if L.M. Montgomery had been Anne."

There are a lot of parallels in the two lives, Gammel said. A lot of what Anne did, who she was, were influenced by Montgomery's life.

Montgomery was born on Prince Edward Island in 1874. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Montgomery was 21 months old. When Montgomery was 7, her father moved to Saskatchewan, leaving her in the care of her maternal grandparents, Alexander and Lucy Macneill, who lived in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. They were a rather stern and strict couple, and Montgomery had a rather lonely childhood, although she did develop relationships with a few "bosom" friends.

"I think that's why she gave Anne such aging parents," Gammel said. "But Anne's life is not exactly a mirror of Maud's. Rather it is more the life Maud would have liked to have lived."

Montgomery grew up to obtain a teaching certificate and worked in several schools on the island. But she also began to write short stories for various magazines and newspapers. Between 1897 and 1907, she had more than 100 published.